1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to power supplies, and more particularly, to power supplies for projectiles, which generate power due to an inherent characteristic of the projectile, such as its acceleration, spin, and/or heat generation.
2. Prior Art
All existing and future smart and guided projectiles and those with means of one-way or two-way communications with a command or tracking station or with each other require electric power for their operation. In addition, as munitions are equipped with the means of communicating their type and characteristics with the firing system to ensure that the intended round is being used and for fire control purposes, and for health monitoring and diagnostics runs before loading, they would require a low level of power supply minutes and sometimes even seconds before being loaded into the gun system. The amount of power required for the proper operation of such smart and guided munitions or those equipped with the aforementioned health monitoring and diagnostics capabilities, is dependent on their mode of operation and the on-board devices that have to be powered. The amount of power requirement is fairly small if the projectile is required to only receive a RF or other similar signal and to power sensors such as MEMs types of accelerometers and rate gyros or health monitoring and diagnostics related electronics. The power requirement is increased if the projectile is also required to communicate back to the ground or some mobile station. The power requirement, however, becomes significant when the projectile has to be equipped with electric or smart materials based actuation devices for guidance and control, particularly if the projectile is required to become highly maneuverable over long traveling times and while traveling at relatively high speeds such as supersonic speeds.
The wide range of power requirements, operating conditions and environmental, safety and reliability issues and shelf life requirements clearly indicates that no single power generation method and device can be appropriate and may be optimally designed for all current and perceived future applications. This means that different power generation concepts have to be sought that could be optimally designed for different smart and guided munitions such as medium caliber gun launched interceptors that travel at supersonic speeds and are required to be guided and highly maneuverable during their flight. As a result, a number of novel power generation concepts that are based on different existing technologies are presented in this proposal.